21 Grams (USA) (Focus) (2003) ****Year: 2003iMDB
Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu Cast: Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Benicio Del Toro
Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu follows up his powerful debut (Amores perros) with an equally emotion-packed drama. 21 Grams interweaves the stories of 3 families whose lives become connected unexpectedly through a tragic event. Benicio Del Toro plays Jack Jordan, a small criminal that tries to change his life through faith and religion but fate seems to not want to give him a break, pushing him into situations and accidents that challenge his belief and threaten to totally destroy his family life. Sean Penn's character, Paul Rivers suffers from serious heart disease but is given a second chance at a normal life and at repairing his marriage which his wife is trying to salvage by conceiving a child together. Lastly, Naomi Watts plays another tragic character that is forced to survive the death of her husband and two kids and is struggling to hang on to the little things that still have a meaning in her life, but doesn't see a way out into normality.
The three stories are connected and are presented interwoven in a style similar to the one that Magnolia perfected and which works better than the "chapter" approach that Innaritu used in Amores Perros. However, the young Mexican director tries to push the storytelling style limits one step further by also scrambling the stories from a temporal perspective. The style resembles Memento, only that the pieces of the puzzle do not flow in any given direction but are rather a seemingly random compilation of the different moments in the story.
While 21 Grams offers truly great dramatic performances by all the 3 lead actors and presents a powerful story in the style of classic greek tragedies, it ultimately falls short to its over-ambitious approach and style. While an argument can be made about how the temporal puzzle in the storytelling gives the viewer a perspective that echoes some of the themes in the movie (understanding God's big design, etc.) it also takes the viewer out of the flow of the unfolding tragedy thus slightly dissipating its impact. Also, the tagline of the movie, about the 21 grams that the human body supposedly loses at the time of death, has really little connection with the rest of the film, and its attempt to provide an extra edge to the movie ending also fails short and seems tacked on.
Despite its flaws 21 Grams remains one of the best movies of the year for me.
Posted by TheCasualCritic on May 10, 2004 02:51 PM | TrackBack